Archive:Language

Outrage has broken out among pedants everywhere, as it was revealed that Waterstones has dropped the apostrophe from its name. Waterstones is hardly the first business to make this move. For instance, Woolworths was, up until the 1980s, called Woolworth. But people called it Woolworths, so the company adopted it. Note how many people also […]

Happy new year. What are you calling it? “Two thousand and twelve” or “twenty-twelve”? It was a topic of conversation among my friends on New Year’s Day. There is also an interesting article by Ben Zimmer. I have long been in the “twenty-twelve” camp. I said “twenty-eleven” and “twenty-ten”. I often even said “twenty oh […]